Slashdot Mirror
Why the World Is Not Ready For Linux
eldavojohn writes "While many users reading Slashdot embrace Linux, ZDNet is running an article on why the rest of the world isn't ready. One note for Linux developers: 'Stop assuming that everyone using Linux (or who wants to use Linux) is a Linux expert.' While a lot of these topics have been brought up as both stories and comments on Slashdot, this article pretty much sums up why Vista could be absolutely terrible, and people would still believe there is no other option." From the article: "The one area of Linux ownership and use where it becomes apparent that there's an assumption that everyone who uses Linux is an expert is hardware support. Your average user doesn't have the time, the energy or the inclination to deal with uncertainty. Also, they usually only have the one PC to play with. Hardware just has to work. There's a very good reason why Microsoft spends a lot of time on hardware compatibility — it's what people want."
I've been installing, troubleshooting, setting up Linux boxes since the days of the 75+ floppy disk installs. Back then it was fun, how cool to get a FREE version of Unix on my PC!
I have probably installed hundreds of Linuxes. In the beginning it was cool, it was fun, and the end result was always worth the effort. Today, while a fully functional Linux box is almost always worth the effort, the blood, sweat, and tears of an install-troubleshoot doesn't come as easily. I've found other Linux "experts" who agree... it's time Linux works out of the box.
That said, I might disagree a bit with the thesis Linux doesn't work out of the box... I've found especially with distros like Ubuntu Linux has come far to "just working". As I've posted before, on a raw machine I've actually had better installation success with a cold install of Linux over XP.
But the main point is valid, and I think it extends to the Linux experts. Not only is troubleshooting geek-cool only to geeks, it doesn't bring warm fuzzies to people for whom you introduce to Linux. There's nothing more scary to the general users than seeing gibberish bootup messages complaining about missing or incompatible drivers and hardware when what they want to see is a shiny new GUI with applications they can use right away.
Linux experts can and still do slough through the pain of perfect Linux installs but the rest of the world isn't impressed. Give them something they can use that works well with everything else. Ultimately it looks like Linux is getting there and may even have a chance of becoming a major desktop... I'm not as pessimistic as the article seems to be.
In the meantime, good points from the article to win favor for Linux and its future:
Until Linux is pre-installed, it won't matter to the majority of home users.
That's because the majority of home users do NOT upgrade their OS. They use whatever was installed by the OEM. They use the drivers provided by the OEM. They won't even install and update anti-virus software.
Simply look at the IQ gaussian. No matter if it disturbs your politically correct sense or not, or if you have a quibble with what the "center" means, it still lays out the performance curve of human beings faced with task completion. The more complex the task, the further out to the right you go, and the fewer people you find able to get the job done. And this tells you, straight to your face, that you're not going to get everyone even in the center and upper half into your "tent" until, or unless, you deal with:
Taken together, I think that most of those points are a direct or secondary consequence of the mindset that pervades linux; without a sea change in that mindset, linux isn't going very far outside its technical user base. IMHO.
From the point of view of my company, we (I, more to the point, since I run the company) am interested in a linux release of our software but the user base is small, there is no core GUI (we are not going to be stuck debugging people's desktops, widget libraries, etc.) and the licensing terms (GPL and others) are basically a minefield for our IP. We've been "doing" windows since the Windows 3.1, we even did all the windows RISC versions (MIPS, PPC, Alpha) we did the Amiga, we're seriously considering releasing our Mac version. Linux? No. I keep my eye on it in the hopes that a GUI will become a standardized part of the OS (whether or not it obsoletes xwindows and pendant technologies isn't an issue.) That'd probably be enough to get a pilot release out. Mind you, I'm not talking about linux's interest in my product. I think my product can stand on its own — all the better for us if linux users are technical. Our product is many times more complex to use than, for instance, Photoshop. No, I'm talking about my interest in linux. Until or unless linux can look and feel to me like support for it won't be more effort intensive than Windows support, it's a non-starter. A consistent GUI is where that all starts. IMHO. :)
I am guessing that the thought process at, for instance, Adobe, is similar. Linux does everything it can, it seems to me, to not court commercial developers of heavy GUI applications. But desktops elsewhere (Apple, Windows) are going to more and more GUI. Look at Omni Outliner. Delicious Library. Photoshop. Word. You may not like these apps, but they literally se
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